If the plaster wall be by any chance removed, the poor bird loses not a moment in replacing it; and though she has apparently great dread of any enemy—the woodpecker, snake, man, or whatever else he may be, disturbing her—yet so faithfully devoted is she to her duties, that scarcely anything will induce her to leave the eggs or young. She fights vigorously in defence of her home and its treasures, striking out with her bill and wings, and making a hissing, angry noise. Nay, timid and shy as she naturally is, she will suffer herself to be carried off captive rather than desert her charge. Let me conclude with one of Bechstein’s anecdotes of the nuthatch:— “A lady amused herself in the winter by throwing seeds on the terrace, below the window, to feed the birds in the neighbourhood. She put some hemp-seed and cracked nuts even on the window-sill, and on a board, for her particular favourites, the blue-tits. Two nuthatches came one day to have their share of this repast, and were so well pleased that they became quite familiar, and did not even go away in the following spring to get their natural food and to build their nest in the wood. They settled themselves in the hollow of an old tree near the house. “As soon as the two young ones which were reared here were ready to fly, they brought them to the hospitable window, where they were to be nourished, and soon after disappeared entirely. It was amusing to see these two new visitors hang or climb on the walls or blinds, whilst their benefactress put their food on the board. These pretty creatures as well as the tits, knew her so well, that when she drove away the sparrows, which came to steal what was not intended for them, they did not fly away also, but seemed to know what was done was only to protect and defend them. They remained near the house for the whole summer, rarely wandering, till one fatal day, at the beginning of the sporting season, in autumn, on hearing the report of a gun, they disappeared and were never seen again.” [Illustration] Watson & Hazell, Printers, 28, Charles Street, Hatton Garden.